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Re: Transmissions Festival in Chicago



i'm glad my first post to this list is about a
positive experience. i was able to attend only
three of the events: aug 8, aug 10 @ hot house,
aug 11 @ q-studios

aug 8: (this is in the reverse order of
appearance) i came away from this show hearing so
strongly in my mind's ear echoes of michael
schumacher's beautiful piece, that i'm likely to
do disservice to the others here...  it's tough to
describe schumacher's piece objectively, but i can
say it had a symphonic scope, a kind of grandeur
about it. lots of different sounds, and different
sound categories, perhaps a stronger focus on
pitch relationships than anything else i heard in
this festival (but these moments were truly
fleeting), and in a kind of improvisatory way. 
there was not much of the knife-edge digital-noise
types of sounds, perhaps a lot fm-synth (?), maybe
layered with other kinds of sounds.  very
"composerly" and it gave me a real sense of
development.   steve roden's intriguing piece
threw me into an analytic (and i hate to be this
way during a live performance!) state because of
the pattern of pointillistic sounds that built the
first third or so of the piece. i was trying to
figure out if it was a canon or some related kind
of structure.  the piece had three distinct
sections i thought, and that was very satisfying.
i missed most of karel-mirra due to late arrival,
but what i heard fit into what i viewed afterwards
as a kind of organically-ordered show, that is,
each of the sets was a kind of mood/tension build
up of the previous piece, so the show had a kind
of momentum, which isn't all that common i think.

aug 10:  i enjoyed hecker's set-break sets a lot
(he played during the breaks, so we heard him, i
guess, four times). it was a masterful mix of
chaos and noisy edges within what was often a
beat-based dance thing. for long interesting
stretches, he eschewed the beat in favor of
abstractions, and the transitions back and forth
were seamless.  the same words could describe
pita's set (performed from the stage, like
everybody else except hecker, who had his laptop
in back by the house board), but on the other hand
it was quite different in character.  pita went a
little more for the surprise element, with sudden
juxtapositions. this was one of the most gripping
performances for me.  for me a great beauty in
richard's set was a sort of granular-cloud /
reverse-reverb sound (his entire opening was made
up from these).  this created extreme tension and
interest and from a quite low volume, with the
timing -- the duration of silences -- a very
important and notable element.

aug 11: remote webcast (live from vienna, i guess)
of farmers manual.  the music -- wide ranging,
abstract, intelligent, perfect balance between all
the sound types, lots of thoughtful ebb and flow.
but too long...enjoyable, but i felt i'd heard all
of the work long before i left. exquisite, but
disembodied video.  the video was not part of the
live stream.  it was preloaded and run in parallel
to the audio.  i wasn't able to stay for the
second half.

[after this, for me, third and final event i
reflected on the five very different venues with
very different tech resources, and how they
managed to pull it off as if they *owned* each of
these places. their first year in chicago -- no
glitches]

(re. hot house) all i can say about the pricing
is: compare prices for other typical events in
that neighborhood. this is the "loop", near the
symphony, opera, theaters, etc, where the average
tik is $50.00......and where else could you turn
around and see a great skyline through vast
picture windows and see (and hear!) the el-train
whizz by).  that is class!  hot house is very
comfortable, with a decent, although nominally
monaural, sound system.  on the 8th i got a decent
stereo spread from the added stage-based stacks
(usually the club uses only its six
ceiling-mounted arrays), so i'm guessing the
performers stereo feed was sent to them and a mono
mix was shipped to the mains flying above.

as i said, tech-wise eveything went great for the
three shows i attended. i was told that the venue
for aug 9th had a total, lasting power blackout,
which hit during the soundcheck. so that means
everyone was already set up and had to unravel and
regroup.  but guess what, the show went on! they
moved it and the audience to another venue a mile
away, and it all happened.  like...phhhew. it's a
noble and tough task to put on one of these
festivals (i've been there once myself) 
....blackouts, floods, or not.

cheers,
_________________________
b o b  f a l e s c h
http://www.zeggz.com/raf/